The “Tomb Raider Temple” – Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat

What have you seen?

It’s a common question in Siem Reap, home to the many hostels and hotels that feed tourists to the Angkor Wat temple complex. Sunburnt tourists trade stories while cooling off in the bar with a can of cold, cheap Angkor beer–the famous temple on the label collecting beads of condensation. A list generally follows the question. Oh, I’ve seen Bayon, Angkor, Banteay Srey, the waterfall and the Tomb Raider temple.

Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft at Ta Prohm.

In his 2002 article for the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Tim Winter outlines the history of Angkor, as UNESCO terms it, “a geographical region, an archaeological site and a cultural concept”. Angkor “emerged as a major seat of power early in the 9th century AD and lasted until the capital’s abandonment in the middle decades of the 15th century” wherein god-kings would construct an irrigation network followed by statues of deceased parents and then a mountain temple dedicated to the king himself. This culminated in Angkor Thom, an extravagant city complex built in the 13th century, the demands of which are cited as contributing to the empire’s eventual decline.

Angkor was “discovered” by French botanist Henri Mouhot in 1862; the overgrown aesthetics leading him to claim that Angkor was a lost civilization, though the local Khmer (Cambodians) would surely disagree. The French colonial administration constructed Angkor as the apogee of Khmer civilization, the abandoned state of which showed Khmer in decline, their culture lost. It was up to the French, of course, to restore this culture, therefore legitimizing their rule. Even after French rule and the totalitarian regime of Pol Pot, Winter notes that “the deeply symbolic national significance of Angkor within contemporary Cambodia” still remains.

When scenes from the movie Tomb Raider were filmed at Angkor Wat in 2000, tourism was already on the rise. Winter establishes the heritage simulacra used by the film producers, who were mimicking the video game world in the real world, dissolving the boundaries between physical and virtual. Sets were built around Angkor Wat, further Orientalizing the Khmer–Angkor was now in the middle of an exotic, chaotic village on stilts in the water. A woman is cooking in a shack as Lara Croft paddles up the the shore amidst the cacophony of a “fallen” society–echoes of the French colonial interpretation of Angkor remaining intact nearly 150 years later.

Ta Prohm, a temple about 3km NE of the main Angkor Wat complex, has been left largely unreconstructed and is being conserved as a partial ruin. This has been intentional, to preserve the photogenic and atmospheric experience so that the tourist may imagine themselves as an early (white, western) explorer, perhaps Mouhot himself. Tim Winter documents “the tourist encounter” at a similar temple, Preah Khan, also being conserved as a partial ruin. The World Monument Fund director who was responsible for preparing Preah Khan for tourism wanted to create specific routes for tourists so that they may “experience Preah Khan the way it should be experienced” and thus create a “more authentic spatial narrative across the site”.

Tomb Raider has reinforced a site narrative at Angkor Wat of discovery, adventure and exploration that has not always been beneficial to the preservation of the site. Winter quotes a Canadian tourist who explained why she climbed over the temple’s delicate rooftops by stating that it made her “feel like Lara Croft exploring the jungled ruins of Angkor.” Ta Prohm is now called the “Tomb Raider Temple” in both guide books and buy the local tuk tuk drivers, which, as Winter writes, blurs the “boundaries across authenticities, realities and fiction” until Angkor is reduced to “a culturally and historically disembedded visual spectacle.”

What I found at Ta Prohm was extraordinary beyond my expectations. A large section of the temple was closed, as it was being conserved. It turns out that preservation-as-ruins was not working out so well for the site as the giant Banyan trees were making the temple perhaps a bit too ruinous and atmospheric. It was a large construction site, yet not a single tourist mentioned this in their description of the site. They were still lining up to take their photographs in the same spots that featured in the film. The process was fascinating. The subject of the photograph and the photographer would wait in a crowd, then the subject would run up to the spot and the photographer would carefully frame the photograph so that the subject would look all alone at the abandoned/forbidding ruin, an early discoverer/adventurer. Sometimes the subject would pose as if they were climbing up the ruins.

This is not all that uncommon; many photographs of heritage are composed by editing out the hoards of fellow discoverer/adventurers, thereby creating the experience of the site as singular. This was especially fascinating at Ta Prohm, as the tourists self-consciously performed the explorer/discoverer/video game narrative. Remarkably, a girl came up to us and said, “did you notice that the layout of this temple (we were at Angkor Thom) is just like Temple Run?” I did not know what Temple Run was, but Dan did–it’s a popular game for the iPad wherein the adventurer (a female, incidentally) moves through exotic locations looking for treasure. Go figure.

How Tomb Raider and other popular depictions have acted on our imagination of cultural heritage and how we in turn reenact these tropes while building our identity through digital media and online presence is pretty fascinating stuff. The question of what have you seen becomes what are you actually seeing and what are you intentionally editing out of your heritage experience?Winter, T. (2002). Angkor Meets Tomb Raider : setting the scene International Journal of Heritage Studies, 8 (4), 323-336 DOI: 10.1080/1352725022000037218

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Author: colleenmorgan

Dr. Colleen Morgan (ORCID 0000-0001-6907-5535) is the Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She conducts research on digital media and archaeology, with a special focus on embodiment, avatars, genetics and bioarchaeology. She is interested in building archaeological narratives with emerging technology, including photography, video, mobile and locative devices. Through archaeological making she explores past lifeways and our current understanding of heritage, especially regarding issues of authority, authenticity, and identity.
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18 thoughts on “The “Tomb Raider Temple” – Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat”

Your post is forcing me to go back and find my pictures of Ta Prohm from January, 2000. Even then, pre Lara Croft, our tour included walking on top of some of the buildings near where we came in, some of the same itineraries as later filmed for Tomb Raider. They might actually pre-date her influence. I was there in late December/early January 2000.

I was going to say a similar comment to Rus, only I was there in 92. The essence of heritage is often displaced by outside cultural influence. I am glad to read that they have closed off areas from the tourists. I know they bring in revenue, but there often disrespect gets on my last nerve.

Very interesting and informative post. It is something I didn’t think about as I was there this past December (2013). The crowds are increasing and it was strange to see many Chinese tourists clambering around the “tomb raider” area. I would think the majority of Chinese (many who were older) would not have any knowledge of that part of western iconography, but yet still posed. From my experience sometimes they just do without thinking why. The crowds were maddening and pushing at this temple more than any other. I was very surprised at how so many places we had access to. I am sure with all the reconstruction and increasing numbers of tourists that will change.

Going there in a couple days, so I appreciate an honest idea of what to expect, though my first taste of those temples today was so much more interesting than any Khmer sites I’ve seen in Thailand.

But you can understand why they try to capitalize on the name. No different from Koh Tapu outside of Phuket being called James Bond Island since it was filmed there and still provides familiar scenery and popular references.

-p.s. Temple Run defaults you as ‘average explorer’ Guy Dangerous. From there you can buy characters like Scarlett Fox, Karma Lee, or even . . . Montana Smith.

Just visited Ta Prohm today. The construction has come a long way from your photo of the crane. Couple of things Lonely Planet states that walking across the rooftops was stopped to protect tourists and the structures and secondly the adventurer in Temple Run is male.

Reblogged this on The World According to Sparkifus & Saunders and commented:
Very thought-provoking and similar to my own observations when I visited the site a few days back. it seems sometimes the boundary between physical heritage tourism and conscious tourism (you see what you want to see and act in a way prescribed by media) is becoming fainter.

This temple of Ta Prohm at Angkor Wat itself is the proof of the ancient Khem civilization. Though it’s listed as ruin, the place still holds the cultural importance, though it has been the major centre of tourism.
And is that root of the trees in the middle of temple or the branch of another trees?

I have a great disdain for all that Indiana Jones and Lara Croft signify: superficiality, sensationalism, ignorance. I also have no use for a prideful ethnocentric mentality (anywhere in the world), which essentially is a form of self-aggrandizement by presumptive association with something falsely regarded as “glorious”. My own ramblings among the many impressive edifices of Angkor was a personal exploration, with an aim to satisfy intellectual curiosity, and for the sake of simple aesthetic pleasure and the joy of discovery.